The Gift of Time
by asweetdeception
Summary: Charloe Time-Travel AU. After he saves her life, Charlie reluctantly agrees to bring Monroe home with her. But the journey doesn't go quite as planned when a freakish lightening storm thrusts them back in time to a pre-blackout New York. Now not only are they left perplexed over the cause of the time-warp, but they also must relearn to live in a time long forgotten.


**A/N:** I know I should be working on Intrigue, but I just had this burning need to write a time-travel AU and I needed to get my muses rolling, so here goes...

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**Chapter 1**

Charlie heard the thunder roll as she found herself slowly gaining consciousness. Everything was blurry and her head felt like a rock had been dropped on it. She blinked a few times to adjust her vision and try to make sense of her surroundings. She tried to remember what had happened before she had passed out and saw flashes of a dimly lit bar and a few dirty-looking men. And something in her drink? And fighting. And _Monroe_. She blinked a few more times and finally gained full conscious as she remembered exactly what had led her here in this dark forest, soaking wet with rain. She tried to shake the drowsy feeling off as she struggled to sit up on her arms.

_Thunk!_ A can of water landed next to her as she looked up to see Monroe sitting by a fire in front of her.

"Drink," he said plainly.

She tried to throw him a sharp look but didn't quite succeed as she struggled to stay up, still feeling shaky from her roofied drink.

"Take it easy, take it easy!" Monroe let out watching her struggle for balance. "You've got to flush the drugs out of your system. Drink."

What, was he being serious? Since when had Monroe been Team Save Mathesons? Where were all these nice bedside manners coming from? Charlie shot him an ungracious look as she finally managed to sit up properly.

All he did in response was to gaze back at her with a deep, pensive look as he very scandalously licked food off his cooking knife.

Charlie looked back angrily as she realized that she really was very thirsty. As Monroe looked away seemingly lost in his deep thoughts, Charlie picked up the can of water and started chugging the water down. When her thirst had quenched slightly, she put down the almost-empty can of water and glanced back at Monroe. "How did you find me?"

"You're not as hard to track as you think," he answered nonchalantly as he threw his knife to the side.

Charlie rolled her eyes. "How long was I out?"

"A full day," he replied, finally shifting his gaze back to her. "Don't worry. I was a complete gentleman the whole time."

Disregarding the added snide comment, Charlie observed him closely to try to decipher the reason behind his sudden regard for her well-being. "Why're you doing this?" She finally asked out loud, giving up.

He gave her a long, meaningful look before finally answering. "A show of faith."

Charlie continued observing him with a straight face trying to find the ruthless General Monroe behind the mask of this sad, lonely, lost man.

"I need you…to take me to Miles," he continued while maintaining his gaze on her eyes.

Charlie noted the pointedly long pause between the two parts of his sentence, but didn't let it bother her for too long. She continued throwing back her look of pure indifference, making no effort to respond.

"I know I can never make it up, but I gotta try," he added.

Make it up? Make up killing thousands of people? Make up the death of her dad, her brother, and who knows how many other people? Make up being a sociopathic, controlling tyrant? Make up being the devil that tore her family apart? Anger flared up in her as she glared at him with all the fury in the world. "Wow," she marveled. "Can you make your eyes water like that, just, at will?"

His face fell as a broken look crossed his eyes. He hadn't expected to hear this. "What?" he muttered in a breaking voice.

"Well, this whole 'Poor, Wounded Monroe' thing," she added scathingly. "I mean it's pathetic."

He turned his gaze to the fire in front of him but his mind seemed to be a million miles away.

"You're a sociopath," she continued. "You say what you need to get what you want. Behind the mask, you're cold and empty, and a killer. That's all."

Her words seemed to have made an impact on him as he continued to pensively gaze into the fire with a tortured look on his face. He seemed lost in his thoughts and distracted. Charlie's gaze turned to the knife Monroe had left idly lying next to him, and she saw her chance. She quickly lunged towards the knife, hoping to take him by surprise. But the man hadn't become the general of one of the most powerful republics by chance. He snapped out of his inner turmoil before she had even reached for the knife and covered it with his gigantic boot. She had completely missed her chance, and whatever pensiveness he had been going through was now completely gone. He grabbed her by her arms and pulled her towards him.

"You're right about one thing," he snapped in a dangerous voice maintaining his firm grip on her arms. "I am good at killing, very good. Even better when I'm with your uncle."

She shot him a hateful glare, not even slightly unnerved by him.

"For the time being at least, we're all on the same team," he continued, his powerful gaze unmoving from her eyes. "Those US guys, they're gonna be a problem, a big one."

Charlie's glare relaxed as she considered his words. "What if I tell you to go to hell?"

He kept a straight face as a self-assured sneer crossed his eyes. "What makes you think you've got a choice?"

Charlie looked back at him repulsively as she contemplated his offer. The Patriots did have bounties out for her mother and had successfully blown Atlanta and Philly to pieces, who knew how far their hands reached? Miles would kill her. Did she even have the strength to take him all the way to Willoughby without strangling him in his sleep? There were all sorts of reasons why this was a terrible idea, but she was thinking of her mother. And the man did just save her life. That could help keep her from strangling him, right?

She gazed at him pointedly as she finally reached her decision. "Fine," she announced, face void of any emotion. "But if Miles shoots you on sight, that's not my problem."

Monroe let out a cynical snicker. "Like he's ever succeeded before."

He had tried to pass it off as a joke, but she could hear the sad lament behind it. They really were a touchy subject for each other.

Charlie grabbed the water can from her side and chugged the remaining water down. All this arguing had really brought her earlier thirst back. She had barely taken two gulps when the water in the can finished. "Damn," she mumbled as she got up and started heading out into the forest.

"Where do you think you're going?" he called after her.

"To get more water. I'm parched," she replied without turning around and continued walking.

But he was already up and behind her. "It's too dark, Charlotte. It's not safe," he appealed while grabbing her right arm. "And the drugs still haven't left your system."

She shook her arm loose from his tight grip. "I can take care of myself, I don't need you to babysit me. And I'm fine," she hissed back at him.

"Really? It's a miracle you've lasted this long on your own," he sneered. "Stop acting like a child, and I won't have to babysit you."

"I agreed to take you to Miles, not to suddenly be on speaking terms with you. So why don't you go back to your moping and let me worry about myself?" she spat as she pulled back her arm forcefully and marched down the hill.

"Suit yourself," he grunted after her.

Charlie rolled her eyes but before she could make anymore painfully snide comments at him, the air was interrupted by a loud thunder followed by shattering sounds as a bright colored light suddenly shot out of the sky with full force energy. Charlie screamed and covered her eyes as the energy from the light flung her backwards. She found herself landing painfully on top of Monroe as they both crashed into a tree bark. The bright light continued striking the earth around them with deafening blares.

"What _is_ that?!" Charlie managed to screech out in the chaos, one hand reaching out for the tree bark while the other clenched on the front of Monroe's shirt.

"Lightening. It's lightening," mumbled a shocked Monroe who looked like he'd seen a ghost. "But _how_…?"

But he didn't have a chance to finish his question as an even stronger wave of lightening collided into them and sent them flailing. For a moment, all Charlie saw was white light surrounding her. As she tried desperately to grab a hold of her consciousness, Charlie found herself reeling into unconsciousness for the second time that night.

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"Charlie?" a voice called out from faraway. "Charlie, wake up!"

A pair of hands was violently shaking her as one of the hands reached up to her eyelids and tried opening them.

"Charlie, can you hear me?" the voice called out again, this time followed by the hands slapping her.

Charlie took a deep breath as consciousness creeped back to her. She felt a bright light burning through her eyelids, and she started blinking. The lightening, is that what Monroe had called it? Was it still there? Why was there so much light everywhere? She painfully blinked a few more times until she was finally able to open her eyes. Bright lights flooded her vision as she tried to focus on the face hovering above her.

"Monroe?" she croaked out, trying to protect her eyes from the bright lights with her hands.

"Charlie, wake up," he said again as his face came into focus.

Charlie put one hand on her face as she used to other to try to sit up. Her head, which hadn't yet recovered from the drugging earlier, was filled with even more excruciating pain. "What's…happening?"

"I don't know, but you have to wake up," he responded softly.

Her eyes had finally somewhat adjusted to the lights. She removed her hands from her face and looked around her to identify the source of the light: it was the sun. It was daytime and the sun was shining brightly down on her from the sky. She chuckled lightly and looked around to see where she was, and almost screamed.

"Is that a _car_?!" she shrieked in disbelief. "A _moving_ car?" She turned to look at Monroe who was also looking around him in disbelief.

"And that's a stereo," he added awestruck, pointing at a group of dancers, one of whom was packing up a dark-gray box with buttons, surrounded by a cheering crowd of people.

"What in the hell?" Charlie exclaimed. The scene in front of her seemed more like a scene from a faded memory than real life. After all, how could this be possible? Electricity didn't exist in their world. Did it?

"All right folks, that was it for today," one of the guys from the dance group announced to the crowd followed by groans. "Don't worry, we'll be back tomorrow. But most of all, don't forget to check out our special show next week before the ball-drop as we welcome 2011 with a bang!"

_2011?_

"Holy hell," Monroe croaked. "It's 2010."

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**A/N:** I know that I pretty much copied the forest scene from 2x04 but I needed to have it as a backdoor to start off on. :) I hope you guys enjoyed it!, Let me know in the review how it was!


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